Ten years after it was first introduced in the legislature, a bill allowing illegal immigrants in Colorado to attend public colleges at the in-state tuition rate appears to be just days away from passage.

The Colorado House gave the bill initial approval Tuesday in a debate that turned nasty at times, with discussions about hope and taxes. The House approved the bill on a voice vote and is expected to take it up for a recorded vote on Friday, thus sending it to Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat who has said he will sign it.

This year marks at least the sixth time in 10 years some sort of tuition bill has been introduced but the first time it is expected to pass.

"I want to be on the side of the issue that educates our children, that expects the best of them. I do not want to be on the side of history that punishes the child for their parents' desire for a better life and to seek the American dream."

Duran said that in previous years, opponents argued they were giving the students false hope because they couldn't legally get a job after they graduated from college. She pointed out that President Barack Obama has signed an executive order that allows them to stay and work in the country.

She also listed all the organizations that support the measure, including the Catholic Church and Catholic Charities.

That prompted Rep. Libby Szabo, R-Arvada, to remark in a discussion on the side of the House that Democrats shouldn't point to Catholic endorsements only when convenient. The Catholic Church and Catholic Charities are opposed to a civil unions bill the House is scheduled to debate Monday.

Rep. Brian Del Grosso, R-Loveland, said by the time some of the kids graduate from college, Obama will be out of office. An executive order is not a law and could change. The bill, he said, "is going at it the wrong way."

"We need have to have comprehensive reform at the federal level," he said.

Other Republicans questioned the true cost of the bill.

A legislative fiscal analysis on the original version of the bill estimated there are approximately 1,500 high school graduates each year in Colorado without legal immigration status, and of those, about 500 will attend college the first year the law takes effect.

Based on those numbers, the new students would generate an additional $2 million in tuition for colleges and universities in the first year and $3 million the following year, money which also would be spent to educate those students. But because the 2013 bill includes immigrant students in the College Opportunity Fund, the state would spend $930,000 the first year and $1.4 million the following year, the analysis said.

But the version of the bill the Senate passed takes the fiscal note off the bill. Democratic senators argued that it was wrong to infer there would be more from the College Opportunity Fund spent on the undocumented students because the fund is simply divided up on a per-student basis and sent to institutions.

Versions of the bill introduced the past two years took out the College Opportunity Fund, prompting Democrats to call the approach "unsubsidized" state tuition. Republicans said it was hypocritical to now say there is no subsidy in the bill.

Yet even Rep. Cheri Gerou, R-Evergreen, who argued Democrats were being disingenuous about the bill's costs, supported it. Gerou was joined by Rep. Kevin Priola, R-Brighton.

"I still see underlying wisdom in the bill," Priola said. "Immigrant children are hungry to succeed."

The debate was watched on the side of the House floor by former Rep. Val Vigil, D-Thornton, who introduced the first tuition bill in 2003. Vigil, now Thornton's mayor pro tem, said he got it to the House floor, but when GOP leaders realized he had the votes to pass it because of the support of moderate Republicans, they sent it to a so-called "kill committee," where it died.

In a show of how times have changed since then, three conservative Republicans voted for the measure last month when it passed out of the Senate: Greg Brophy of Wray, Owen Hill of Colorado Springs and Larry Crowder of Alamosa.

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